Part 1 Book 2 Chapter 8 Billows and Shadows

A man overboard!

What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows. That sombre ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on.

The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he rises again to the surface; he calls, he stretches out his arms; he is not heard. The vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its own workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man; his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths. What a spectre is that retreating sail! He gazes and gazes at it frantically. It retreats, it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there but just now, he was one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the rest, he had his part of breath and of sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has taken place? He has slipped, he has fallen; all is at an end.

He is in the tremendous sea. Under foot he has nothing but what flees and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him hideously; the tossings of the abyss bear him away; all the tongues of water dash over his head; a populace of waves spits upon him; confused openings half devour him; every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses of precipices filled with night; frightful and unknown vegetations seize him, knot about his feet, draw him to them; he is conscious that he is becoming an abyss, that he forms part of the foam; the waves toss him from one to another; he drinks in the bitterness; the cowardly ocean attacks him furiously, to drown him; the enormity plays with his agony. It seems as though all that water were hate.

Nevertheless, he struggles.

He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he makes an effort; he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, combats the inexhaustible.

Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of the horizon.

The wind blows in gusts; all the foam overwhelms him. He raises his eyes and beholds only the lividness of the clouds. He witnesses, amid his death-pangs, the immense madness of the sea. He is tortured by this madness; he hears noises strange to man, which seem to come from beyond the limits of the earth, and from one knows not what frightful region beyond.

There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human distresses; but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float, and he, he rattles in the death agony.

He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud.

Night descends; he has been swimming for hours; his strength is exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has vanished; he is alone in the formidable twilight gulf; he sinks, he stiffens himself, he twists himself; he feels under him the monstrous billows of the invisible; he shouts.

There are no more men. Where is God?

He shouts. Help! Help! He still shouts on.

Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven.

He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the infinite.

Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and nonsentient tumult, the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths of engulfment.

Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death!

The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness.

The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resuscitate it?

一个人落在海里了！

有什么要紧！船是不会停的。风刮着，这条阴暗的船有它非走不可的路程。它过去了。

那个人灭了顶，随后又出现，忽沉忽浮，漂在水面，他叫喊，扬手，却没有人听见他的喊声。船呢，在飓风里飘荡不定，人们正忙于操作，海员和旅客，对那个落水的人，甚至连一眼也不再望了，他那个可怜的头只是沧海中的一粟而已。

他在深处发出了悲惨的呼号。那条驶去的帆船简直是个鬼影！他望着它，发狂似的望着它。它越去越远，船影渐淡，船身也渐小了。刚才他还在那船上，是船员中的一员，和其余的人一道在甲板上忽来忽往，他有他的一份空气和阳光，还是一个活生生的人。现在，出了什么事呢？他滑了一交，掉了下去，这就完了。

他被困在惊涛骇浪中。他的脚只能踏着虚空，只能往下沉。迎风崩裂的波涛狠狠地包围着他，波峰波谷带着他辗转上下，一缕缕的白练飞腾在他的头上，一阵阵的狂澜向他喷唾，巨浪的口把他吞没殆半；他每次下沉，都隐约看见那黑暗的深渊，一些未曾见过的奇怪植物捉住他，缠着他的脚，把他拉向它们那里去；他觉得自己也成了旋涡，也成了泡沫的一部分，波涛把他往复抛掷；他喝着苦汁，无情的海水前仆后继，定要把他淹没，浩瀚的泽国拿他的垂死挣扎来取乐。好象这里的水对他全怀着仇恨。

但是他仍旧挣扎，尽力保卫自己，他振奋精神，努力泅泳。

他微弱的力气立刻告竭了，仍旧和无边无际的波涛奋斗。

船到哪里去了？在前面。在水天相接、惨淡无光的地方，仿佛还隐约可辨。

狂风在吼，无穷的浪花在向他猛扑。他抬起眼睛，只见行云的灰暗色。他气息奄奄地目击浩海的疯狂，而这种疯狂已把他置于绝地了。他听见一片从未听过的怪声，仿佛是从世外，从不知何处恐怖的国度里飞来。

在云里有许多飞鸟，如同在人生祸患的上面有许多天使。但是它们和他有什么相干呢？它们飞、鸣、翱翔；至于他，他呼号待毙。

他觉得自己同时被两种广大无边的东西所掩埋：海和天，一种是墓穴，一种是殓衣。

黑夜来了，他已经泅泳了几个钟头，力气使尽了，那条船，那条载着一些人的远远的船，已经不见了。他孤零零陷在那可怕的，笼罩在暮色中的深渊里，他往下沉，他挣扎，他扭动身体，在他的底下他觉得有些目不能见的渺茫的怪物。他号着。

人全不在了。上帝在什么地方呢？

他喊着，救命呀！救命呀！他不停地喊着。

水边没有一点东西，天上也没有一点东西。

他向空际、波涛、海藻、礁石哀求；它们都充耳不闻。他向暴风央求；坚强的暴风只服从太空的号令。

在他四周的是夜色、暮霭、寂寥、奔腾放逐的骚乱、起伏不停的怒涛。他的身体中只有恐怖和疲惫。他的脚下只有一片虚空。没有立足的地方。他想到他的尸体漂浮在那无限凄凉的幽冥里。无底的寒泉使他僵直。他的手痉挛，握着的是虚空。风，云，漩流，狂飙，无用的群星！怎么办呵？那失望的人只得听从命运摆布了，穷于应付的人往往坐以待毙，他只得听其自然，任其飘荡不再抵抗了，看呵，他从此跌入灭亡的阴惨深渊里了。

呵，人类社会历久不变的行程！途中多少人和灵魂要丧失！人类社会是所有那些被法律抛弃了的人的海洋！那里最惨的是没有援助！呵，这是精神的死亡！

海，就是冷酷无情的法律抛掷它牺牲品的总渊薮。海，就是无边的苦难。

漂在那深渊里的心灵可以变成尸体，将来谁使它复活呢？